Polysilicon MEMS structures are coated with self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to reduce stiction and improve wear resistance. This study reports on an octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) coated low pressure chemical vapour deposited (LPCVD) polysilicon based MEMS test structure fabricated at Sandia National Laboratories, USA. The surface morphology and OTS layer have been studied by SEM, XPS and AFM....

Thin ~equivalent oxide thickness Teq of 2.4 nm! silicon nitride layers were deposited on Si substrates by an atomic-layer-deposition ~ALD! technique at low temperatures ~,550 °C!. The interface state density at the ALD silicon nitride/Si-substrate interface was almost the same as that of the gate SiO2. No hysteresis was observed in the gate capacitance–gate voltage characteristics. The gate lea...

Mapping the force on plasmid DNA molecules with the atomic force microscope (AFM) showed an increased adhesion force between a silicon nitride tip and DNA strands in a mildly acidic solution. With this adhesion force, the plasmid DNA could be stretched off the mica surface, and the silicon nitride tip occasionally picked up one or several molecules of plasmid DNA from the mica surface. We have ...

We report the bulk synthesis of hydrogenated, amorphous SixNy and SixOy nanowires using pools of molten gallium as the solvent medium and microwave plasma consisting of silane in nitrogen and silane in oxygen respectively. High densities of multiple nanowires nucleated and grew from molten gallium pools. The resulting nanowires were tens of nanometers in diameter and tens of microns long. Elect...

Silicon nitride is the most commonly used passivation layer in biosensor applications where electronic components must be interfaced with ionic solutions. Unfortunately, the predominant method for functionalizing silicon nitride surfaces, silane chemistry, suffers from a lack of reproducibility. As an alternative, we have developed a silane-free pathway that allows for the direct functionalizat...

Tantalum (Ta) oxide, due to its high-temperature capabilities and thermal expansion coefficient similar to silicon nitride, is a promising candidate for environmental barriers for silicon (Si) nitride-based ceramics. This paper focuses on the development of plasma-sprayed Ta oxide as an environmental barrier coating for silicon nitride. Using a D-optimal design of experiments, plasma-spray proc...

In this paper, we present two four-port optical circulators for TE and TM modes, respectively. Exploiting the recent technological development concerning Ce:YIG pulse laser deposition on silicon nitride platform, we design two integrated circulators, which can be used to implement several functions in integrated optics, such as de-interleavers, input/output amplifier isolators and output laser ...

In this paper we present the first investigation of a batch method for folding of threedimensional micrometer-sized silicon nitride structures by capillary forces. Silicon nitride tubes have been designed and fabricated using DRIE at the center of the planar origami patterns of the structures. Water is brought to the structures by pumping the liquid through the wafer via those tubes. Isolated m...

Ageing of nanosized silicon nitride powder produced by the vapor phase reaction of silicon tetrachloride and ammonia has been studied in argon gas, in dry air and in air of 80% humidity, respectively, for 3 to 540 days. No remarkable changes were observed either in the bulk or the surface properties on storage in argon gas for 90 days. However, samples stored in dry air and humid air, respectiv...

We present experimental results on the observation of a bulk second-order nonlinear susceptibility, derived from both free-space and integrated measurements, in silicon nitride. Phase-matching is achieved through dispersion engineering of the waveguide cross-section, independently revealing multiple components of the nonlinear susceptibility, namely χ(2) yyy = 0.14 ± 0.08 ...